Displayed at the Intel Development Forum late in 2014, the Synapse Dress is the product of the most cutting edge technologies available. Designed by Dutch FashionTech Designer Anouk Wipprecht, modeled in collaboration with Italian Architect Niccolo Casas, 3D printed at Materialise, and incorporating the Intel Edison (a tiny computer designed for wearable devices), the Synapse dress “logs and communicates the body’s actions and environmental (dis)stress.”
The dress responds to stimuli from the wearer, via a headpiece that pairs with the dress. The piece monitors brain activity, heart rate, and tension levels in the person, and then reflects that information in the dress itself. If, for example, the wearer is off-put by someone’s proximity, the dress may flash blindingly, forcing those near her to take a step back.
For Wipprecht, this is the tip of the iceberg. “With my work I try to imagine how new high tech materials combined with smart sensors and actuators can impact the ways we connect, communicate and relate to one another. I believe technology will transform from the role of a ‘device’ towards functioning more as an integrated medium. With fashion being the one truly universal wearable spread all over our bodies and increasingly integrated abilities to sense and compute, we can start to redefine [the] wardrobe of the future.”
While it may seem a bit unnerving to see a dress with a “sixth sense” capability, this initial attempt to bridge wearable tech from mere fitness trackers to being deeply embedded in the fashion world has serious promise.
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